Tuesday, 20 November 2012

X Ales in the 1860's

Looking at X Ales from the 1830's was so much fun, I've decided to revisit the topic. Except this time I'm also including provincial X Ales. I would have done the same for the 1830's except I have bugger all records from outside London for that period. That's OK. I'm making up for it now.

If you can remember as far back as the 1830's, you'll see that the gravities had fallen in the intervening 30 years. That's no surprise. The 1830's were the high point. It's been all downhill for Mild gravities ever since.

What should be immediately apparent is the disappearance of some of the high-gravity X Ales. The XXX Ales have all disappeared and some of the XXX Ales. On the other hand, both Whitbread and Truman had introduced an intermediate beer between X Ale and XX Ale. XL in the case of Whitbread, 40/- Ale in the case of Truman. I assume that the L in XL stands for London. That's usually what it meant. 40/- Ale's name is pretty easy to explain: it's the price per barrel. (Those who think the shilling system of designation was purely Scottish, please take note.)

Surprisingly, the hopping rates had increased averaging around 10 pounds per quarter compared to about 8 in the 1830's. I've absolutely no idea how to explain this. It could be connected with a change in the source of hops. There had been a revolution in hop supplies in the intervening decades. with foreign hops, especially American ones, becoming very common. In the 1830's the hops had been all English. The increased hopping rate could reflect these imported hops being of lower quality.

Attenuation had edged up a tad, and averaged closer to 70% than the former 65%. Though I'm not sure that the change is big enough to be really significant.

London X Ales in the 1860's

Date

Year

Brewer

Beer

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Attenuation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

Pitch
temp

max.
fermentation temp

length
of fermentation (days)

14th May

1867

Barclay Perkins

X

1061.2

1018.6

5.64

69.68%

9.85

2.77

1.25

1.5

2.5

65º

º

2nd Oct

1868

Barclay Perkins

XX

1078.9

1024.7

7.18

68.77%

12.89

4.47

1.5

1.75

3

61º

77º

3 + 4

2nd Oct

1868

Barclay Perkins

XXX

1092.8

1030.2

8.28

67.46%

14.21

5.90

1.5

1.75

3

58º

77º

3 + 4

8th Jul

1867

Whitbread

X

1061.2

1020.2

5.42

66.97%

10.12

2.95

64º

º

5

16th May

1867

Whitbread

XL

1071.2

1026.0

5.97

63.42%

9.01

3.05

60º

74º

3 + 3

3rd Jun

1867

Whitbread

XX

1082.3

1031.3

6.74

61.95%

9.09

3.21

60º

74º

3 + 1

3rd Jul

1865

Truman

X Ale

1067.3

1013.9

7.07

79.42%

9

2.78

59º

º

4th Jul

1865

Truman

40/- Ale

1072.6

1020.8

6.85

71.37%

9

3.00

59º

º

22nd Aug

1865

Truman

XX Ale

1081.2

1020.5

8.03

74.74%

11.0

7.17

58º

º

22nd Aug

1865

Truman

XXX Ale

1088.9

1022.7

8.76

74.45%

11.0

10.15

58º

º

23rd July

1867

Courage

Ale X

1065.9

10.00

3.10

º

30th July

1867

Courage

Ale XX

1078.9

10.00

3.71

º

Sources:

Whitbread brewing records held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document numbers LMA/4453/D/01/032 and LMA/4453/D/01/033.

Barclay Perkins brewing records held at the London
Metropolitan Archives document numbers ACC/2305/1/572 and ACC/2305/08/275.

Truman brewing record held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document number B/THB/C/147.

Courage brewing record held at the London Metropolitan
Archives document number ACC/2305/08/275.

Let's move on to the provincial X Ales. They cover a fairly good part of the country, being from Scotland, Yorkshire and Kent. I realise now that Lovibond, as a London brewer, should have been in the first table. Though in terms of the profile of their beers, they fit in better here. Presumably because they were considerably smaller than the likes or Truman, Whitbread, Courage and Barclay Perkins.

Provincial X Ales in the 1860's

Date

Year

Brewer

Beer

OG

FG

ABV

App.
Attenuation

lbs
hops/ qtr

hops
lb/brl

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

boil
time (hours)

Pitch
temp

max.
fermentation temp

length
of fermentation (days)

1st Oct

1868

Tetley

X

1047.4

1020.8

3.52

56.14%

6.00

1.11

1.5

2

66º

66º

4

2nd Oct

1868

Tetley

X1

1055.4

1019.4

4.76

65.00%

6.00

1.30

1.5

2

59º

63º

6

5th Oct

1868

Tetley

X2

1062.0

1017.7

5.86

71.43%

8.00

2.00

1.5

2

62º

65º

9

19th Oct

1868

Tetley

X3

1066.5

1022.2

5.86

66.67%

9.96

3.93

1.5

2

61º

65º

8

17th Oct

1868

William Younger

X

1053

1023

3.97

56.60%

6.30

1.36

2.5

59º

66º

3 + 3

24th Aug

1868

William Younger

XX

1057

1024

4.37

57.89%

9.58

2.25

2

2.25

58º

69º

4 + 2

26th Aug

1868

William Younger

XXX

1068

1028

5.29

58.82%

8.00

2.55

2

2.5

60º

69º

4 + 2

18th Jun

1869

Medway

X

1051.5

8.00

1.75

1.5

1.5

60º

2nd Jun

1869

Medway

XX

1066.8

9.00

2.63

1.5

1.5

60º

1864

Lovibond

X Ale

1050.4

1015.5

4.62

69.23%

10.50

3.15

1864

Lovibond

XX Ale

1065.6

1015.0

6.70

77.20%

2.73

0.81

1864

Lovibond

XXX Ale

1074.2

1016.6

7.62

77.61%

6.50

1.04

1864

Lovibond

XXXX Ale

1085.3

1019.9

8.65

76.62%

10.50

2.01

Sources:

Tetley brewing record held at the West Yorkshire Archive
Service, Leeds document number WYL756/16/ACC1903

William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing
Archive document number WY/6/1/2/21

Medway brewing record owned by me

Lovibond brewing record owned by me

The table confirms what I told you before: that the beer from the large London brewers was in general stronger than from their smaller or provincial competitors. The X Ales of the big boys all had gravities over 1060º, while those of the provincial brewers were only around 1050º. The same pattern continued as you went up the strength scale, with Tetley's strongest Mild, X3, only being about the same strength as a London X Ale.

The hopping rates of the provincial beers were also lower, averaging a little under 8 lbs per quarter, while the London beers averaged almost 10.5 lbs per quarter.

It's a shame that I don't have more complete figures for fermentation temperatures. It looks as if, although the pitching temperatures were all around 60º F, that the maximum temperature was considerably lower outside London. A difference in the order of 10º F. This had to be deliberate as London brewers had total control of their fermentation temperatures. I assume the other brewers did, too, as by this time attemperators were standard pieces of kit.

5 comments:

Gary Gillman
said...

Ron, compare the strengths of the higher-temperature fermented ales to the lower-temperature fermented group. The latter are weaker beers, from 3.5% to just below 6% (and most on the lower end). The higher fermented group are in the 6-8% range.

The fermenting temps for the stronger ales are much higher than the norm today in Anglo-American brewing but interestingly, some Belgian brewers use similarly high fermenting temperatures. I've read this encourages production of certain esters and other co-products of fermentation (e.g. higher alcohols) which give many Belgian ales their hallmark, that banana/bready/clove-like taste even in all-malt or malt-and-candi sugar beers.

This makes me think many of those strong London ales may have had a similar taste and that this was a regional preference.

I agree yeasts strains can make a difference Ron but anything in the neighborhood of 77 F will tend to produce esters and fusels.

Pitching does not affect this the same way, I was referring to fermenting heats (wort temperature).

72F is within modern practice for warm ferments (it is around 62-72, usually around 67-68) but I acknowledge that Boddington's 76 is rather high. Come to think of it, Boddie's has a slight Belgian quality to it, that banana-like taste - similar to Cooper's Sparkling, say. Really!